Taking An Interest
by enblackink
Summary: How Suigetsu and Sasuke's relationship started.


**TAKING AN INTEREST  
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><p>AUTHORS: e. N. Black<br>DISCLAIMER: Naruto is a product of Kishimoto Masashi  
>CHARACTERS: Houzuki Suigetsu &amp; Uchiha Sasuke<br>WARNINGS: M/M, Insinuations of adult concepts

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><p>Yakushi Kabuto looked as pissed as a necrophiliac discovering the body he was screwing still had a heartbeat, Houzuki Suigetsu noted from within his glass jail cell. Eyes without form followed the image though it was a bit distorted through the water, the sound of Kabuto stomping through the lab vaguely muffled.<p>

Suigetsu didn't really care why Kabuto was in an absolute shit-fit but he knew Kabuto's mood would be taken out on him as had been the routine lately. The most Suigetsu could hope was that the renegade med-nin would forget to properly sedate him before suctioning him from the tube, but it seemed that was not to be as an acrid taste permeated his dwelling. _Aww, fuck me_, Suigetsu bemoaned as his thoughts became sluggish and his body stagnant. There was a certain amount of drugs in his water at all times to keep him docile, but whenever Kabuto felt like experimenting he was flooded with the hard stuff to keep him disoriented long enough to put him wherever they wanted him.

He hadn't been capable of caring about a lot of things concerning his life in a while but he remembered that it had been _fun_ instilling that lesson in to Orochimaru's minions that first time — that Houzuki Suigetsu was bound but not broken. A lot of underlings had died that day. Kabuto had been swimming in corpses; Suigetsu had seen that he was properly dismayed before Orochimaru yet giddy behind the old man's back. Then Suigetsu had been pitted against some freak with a split personality, tortured by some freak who got off on being bitten, and then _finally_ deemed too dangerous to be amongst the normal experiments and moved to his own laboratory. He was squeezed into a tube the size of a water heater and poured out of it whenever Kabuto had some new theory on how to recreate his abilities — or whenever Kabuto was ignored by Orochimaru and had nothing better to do than _fiddle_ with him.

If this kept up, he was going to have to take an interest in Kabuto's life, Suigetsu lamented. It was one thing to be experimented on in the name of science or whatever, but a complete other thing to endure this treatment for no other reason than Kabuto's . . . jealousy?

_Yeah_. Suigetsu forced an eye open as his body attempted to regain his true form instead of the gelatinous half-state he operated in when consciousness was fleeting. The med-nin was stomping his foot impatiently, glowering at the monitors, pushing buttons as though that would speed up the data loading. He hadn't even bothered to don those fake glasses, or tie his hair back. Suigetsu snickered internally. _Yep. Kabuto definitely seems jealous. _ Somebody's_ not getting laid_.

He'd heard whispers of some guy named Kimimaro who had once held Orochimaru's attention more than Kabuto. Apparently Kabuto had successfully gotten rid of that guy and there'd been no one to replace Kimimaro since.

_So, Orochimaru's found a new toy. Well good for him_. Suigetsu both pitied the poor bastard and yet at the same time cheered him on. He couldn't exactly play with a sword or even move of his own volition right now, but collecting blades was still his favorite pastime. After sword-collecting though, he _really_ loved cutting things apart, be it bodies or relationships. So if there was someone getting in between Orochimaru and Kabuto, Suigetsu was irrevocably on that guy's side.

The table Suigetsu was laid out on had been specially made. It was metal, augmented with a control panel that shot electricity through it at varying degrees. Suigetsu was ridiculously weak against electricity, so even the lowest setting kept him planted to the surface, shivering in pain as the volts shot through him. The parts of his naked body touching the table were slighted melted. He couldn't focus enough to properly hydrate as Kabuto stood over him with a scalpel and sadistic smile.

Suigetsu ordered himself to smile in return. Teeth chattering he asked, "Boy or girl?"

Kabuto paused with the scalpel, eyes turning to focus on Suigetsu's face. "What?"

"Huh, I guess Orochimaru really isn't the into girls type . . . he'd have a hard time finding somebody he thought was prettier than him." Suigetsu assumed what he hoped was a thoughtful expression, but it was hard to tell when he couldn't feel his facial muscles.

Kabuto's eyes narrowed.

"Well, whoever it is . . . safe to say his ass is better than yours right—!" The table's voltage suddenly increased and instantly liquefied him, burning through the drugs in his system, and causing him to feel every ounce of agony as his body boiled.

Kabuto sighed and ran a hand through his loose gray hair to pull it back from his face. "Ah. Dammit. Look what you've made me do." He turned down the voltage with one hand and pushed another button to start up a familiar vacuum sound. A machine that looked like a giant straw moved to hover over the puddle that was Suigetsu on the table and began to slurp him up to return him to his test tube home. Suigetsu couldn't recall ever being grateful for it in his life until that moment. It would take awhile for him to regenerate after that shock but oh, it had been worth it to see that absolutely livid expression cross Kabuto's face at the suggestion of being supplanted, Suigetsu thought as he drifted to sleep.

The lab lights clicking on again a few scant hours later had Suigetsu's eyes slitting open. Kabuto wouldn't come back after sabotaging his own experiment and knowing it would be weeks before Suigetsu recovered enough to continue. Orochimaru didn't come to this lab unless Kabuto had discovered something interesting about Suigetsu. There was no one else in this particular compound and the way leading to Suigetsu's underground lab was annoyingly difficult to discover for the average person.

"Hm." Suigetsu heard as his eyes followed a figure's blurry progress through the room. "So _this_ is what this hideout is for."

_Ah_, the Mist-nin thought, formless lips twitching in a smile. Things were officially looking up. Dark hair and eyes, pale skin, reasonably attractive if one liked that dead-eyed look, hideous clothes falling off him — just Orochimaru's type. This was the source of Kabuto's foul mood and as such, Suigetsu's 'friend'. The boy wandered around the room a bit more inspecting the set up before reaching out to touch a knob on one of the consoles.

"Wouldn't do that," Suigetsu warned.

The boy turned around, still dead-eyed, but alert, body tense in anticipation. "Who said that?" he demanded as though he were still in control of the situation.

His outfit looked like a cross between a circus clown and a street trollop. If Suigetsu had seen him under different circumstances he definitely would have wondered if the kid was soliciting or juggling . . . or both. Oh well, his brother Mangetsu had always said something about the flashiest people being the most insecure . . .

"I did," Suigetsu drawled and chuckled as the boy's eyes slowly scanned the room.

"Who are you?"

"Uh, this is _my_ space. I should be asking _you_ that." Suigetsu would swear the temperature in his test tube fell a few degrees at the look of irritation the other boy shot him. "So. Got a name?" the Mist-nin prodded.

He frowned, "Uchiha . . ." he straightened from his ready to pounce stance. "Sasuke."

"Well then," Suigetsu dropped his voice to imitate to the same dark, depressing, ominous tone the other boy had used to give his name, "_Uchiha. Sasuke._ I guess you're a fellow prisoner."

"I'm not a prisoner," Sasuke corrected.

"Right," Suigetsu agreed. "But aren't you the one sucking old balls lately?" He'd been anticipating Sasuke's reaction to the taunt, but somehow the stone-faced lack of expression was just as good. "Sounds like prison to me is all I'm saying," Suigetsu said with a smirk that couldn't be seen. It had been such a long time since he'd spoken to someone other than Kabuto and this prickly kid was proving to be a much needed distraction.

"You say you're captured?" Sasuke wondered. "Where are you?"

"In front of you." The skeptical expression said Sasuke didn't believe Suigetsu at all. The Mist-nin sighed. "Come toward the center tank and put your hand on it." The less-than-impressed expression remained but Sasuke walked toward Suigetsu's prison and placed his hand on the glass. Suigetsu concentrated as much as he could on what his fist was supposed to look like and willed it to form so he could knock on the glass where Sasuke's hand rested.

For a second Sasuke looked paralyzed as he felt the vibration against his palm and heard the sound, but then asked, "How come you're the only one here?"

"Because I'm awesome."

Empty black eyes raked the tank from top to bottom. "If you're so awesome how did you get captured?"

"Ah." Suigetsu shrugged though Sasuke couldn't see it. "Some days you're the hawk . . . some days you're the snake."

Sasuke nodded as though he understood that perfectly. He removed his hand from the glass and turned to leave. "I have lessons," he stated, "but when I come back will you tell me how you got here?"

Suigetsu snorted. "_If_ you come back, what's in it for me?"

Sasuke smirked. "I might be the hawk that frees you one day."

Suigetsu laughed. "Whatever."

Suigetsu was still snickering to himself long after Sasuke had gone. Dead-eyed Uchiha Sasuke was much more like a snake than a hawk, and currently weaker than Suigetsu had been when Suigetsu had been captured. But that was okay. Sasuke would get stronger. Sasuke would continue to tempt Orochimaru away from Kabuto. And Sasuke would visit Suigetsu whenever he was at this hideout in the mean time so it was a win-win-win situation as far as Suigetsu was concerned. Maybe Sasuke would free him and maybe he wouldn't, but the important thing was that Houzuki Suigetsu was taking an interest in life again.


End file.
